I enjoy pretty much anything, if I am doing it with my wife. We like country walking, the theatre, films, art galleries, antiques, and ballet. We dance every time we get a chance: both Latin and ballroom. We've forgotten all the routines we ever learned and just mug our way through it.
I'd like to have met Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. Also Stephen J Gould, the evolutionary biologist. Smith was a likeable, exhuberant phony; and, if I had more courage and fewer morals, I think I could be one. Gould is a beautiful writer and I admire his books for their intelligence, intellectual honesty (except his doctrine of NOMA, which is an amiable falsehood)and liberal humaneness. I'd like to see my father again; Lionel Trippett, the literary pornographer; Fabulous Fred Day (who recited Rudyard Kipling's poems when drunk; and my former agent James Hale, who was loved by all. I don't pay attention to modern celebrities; don't know who they are;and in general don't admire them.
Dance music of the thirties to the fifties: Gershwin, Irving Berlin and so forth. Also tango: particularly the nuevo tango of Astor Piazzola. I have a weakness for French chansons of the mid twentieth century, especially Charles Trenet. The Marriage of Figaro almost brings me to tears.
Casablanca - Now Voyager - Sunset Boulevard - Some like It Hot - The Producers - Spartacus - Pulp Fiction - Life of Brian - Assassination Tango - The Murder Of A Chinese Bookie
I don't watch much television. I don't like reality shows. I admire American crime drama such as CSI for its efficient story-telling; I like more or less anything HBO does. I love programmes in which bright old people reminisce about their lives. I don't think any other medium serves them so well.
War And Peace - Dickens - Evelyn Waugh - Earthly Powers - A Dance To The Music Of Time - Le Grand Meaulnes - books by Marcel Pagnol - Proust - Civilisation And the Rise Of Capitalism - American crime novels - Agatha Christie (which I read also in French, German and Spanish to keep my hand in)and, lately, popular science, especially Stephen J Gould
I don't really go in for heroes. I admire people I know in the round, which is why I love and respect my brother Denis and my wife. Also my sisters- and brothers-in-law and my sister Ann. They haven't achieved anything remarkable, but, with few resources, they've lived decent lives and are a blessing to other people.